


Reaching: Something Like an Infinity War Fix It

by iceplums (halfbloodranger)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 08:25:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14565006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfbloodranger/pseuds/iceplums
Summary: “There are multiple universes,” the professor posits, and a young Tony Stark takes note. Not physically, of course, he doesn’t need that, but somewhere, deep in his mind, there are synapses connecting that won’t fire again for many years.





	Reaching: Something Like an Infinity War Fix It

They have always been too far apart. Steve looks back at the sound of a voice that lives somewhere deeper in him than his soul to see the face of the man, the boy, the soldier, the only person who ever stayed around through everything, fading away. He reaches out, he always reaches out, they’re always stretching their hands out for each other and they can never reach far enough. Steve feels air through his fingertips and everything is cold, like clinging to a train thousands of feet above cold, white snow. Except now everything is green and warm and he touches the soft dirt under his fingertips and there is nowhere else Bucky could be. He is gone, and Steve didn’t grab his hand. Again, and again, and again.

These legs are too short. These hands, too weak, these eyes, too dull. Rocket turns to the whispering falling of leaves, like an early autumn, and his sidekick, his best friend, the only one who ever cared enough to stick around, twig to tree to twig again. And now to dust. He has never saved this one, not really. Groot has always been doing the saving. So he cannot understand, has no mark, no beginning, when it is his turn to save. He can do nothing. He has always been doing nothing. He decides, in a flat instant, that he will finally, finally do something, for no reward, for no threat, and with that his paws close on nothing. There is no acorn. Nothing to plant. No starting over this time. It echoes. “I am Groot.”

You would think, the fifth time, it would not hurt so badly. But each dying gasp strikes an iron bolt into his heart deeper than anything Thanos could hope to wield. It is too easy to get used to this kind of thing, and yet, in some awful way, it is not. It is so easy to tell himself, console himself as one would a weeping child, that he will be back. It is a trick. It has always been a trick, hasn’t it? All of this. The hall echoes as his body drops. It is not a trick. None of it is. They are all, all gone. Lonely god. This fistful of fabric in his fingers is too familiar, these tears in his eyes, this bow of his head. Did he ever tell him he loved him? So many times, and he cannot even remember. This body is too cold, this time. Cold, and empty.

Is it doing the right thing if every time someone ends up dead? Protect him, you thought. Keep him safe, you thought. Don’t let him become like you, you thought. Well, he isn’t. He is dead. You wish, suddenly, that you were like him. Tony has always felt an emptiness in that space at his breastbone, that cold blue iron that is less of a void than a stitch, than a shield. The emptiness now expands to his fingertips and everything, everywhere is hollow. He could not do it. What a fool even to try. He should have sent him home, should have left him on the ship, should have never even given him the suit, should have, should have, should have. The dust is so colorless. Peter had so much color, and now, like Afghanistan, like Pepper, like the suits: he is grey. They are monochrome corpses, every single one of them. Including him.

\---

“Half of the entire universe.”  
Half of _this_ entire universe.  
A synapse lights. 

\---

He thinks, maybe, that this is redemption. These warm calloused fingers, this throbbing pulse, this soft thud to the ground. Together. This dirt, free always from snow, safely wedged beneath their fingernails. Molecules repositioning themselves, curling of a hair back into place. Gentle fingers, following. “I thought that was the end of the line, for a minute there.” God, that smile. He’d give universes for that smile. “It’s not our stop yet, Buck.” Careful feet, both on solid ground. Shoulders and arms and the weight of the world is okay, across two backs. Two centuries of this, and who knows when it will end. Two centuries of this, and for the first time, it’s okay.

He was never in charge of the tree. No captain. No leader. Just a animal turned machine turned something else, something capable of annoyance and fondness and love, love, love, and the touch of bark on weathered paws. The feel of a blaster should be more familiar, but this roughness, this gentle coolness of life pulsing under solid wood, is the only thing he has to call home. A teenager’s smile, an eye roll. He can’t even manage to brush it off, can’t punch him gently in the side and laugh it away, because somewhere else he isn’t this lucky. He doesn’t get to hold this pain-in-the-ass twig-of-a-kid in a hug that doesn’t even start to wrap his torso, so he just tries to hug him tighter and not sob when he feels the soft brush of leaves through his fur. A thousand planets and he never found home until here. What a fool. What a lucky, lucky fool.

You would think, the fifth time, that he would expect it. But perhaps it is the swiftness, this time. Thanos leaves in a blaze of crackling smoke and he stumbles to a form he now finds dreadfully familiar, curve of his spine too used to bending over coffins. Until a hand wraps around his own and he straightens, mischievous wink folding him in laughter instead. He cannot help it. “I should have known,” he says, and will not let Loki up because he must give him that hug he promised, now, when it had almost been too late, when it had always been almost too late. _I love you_ has always been laced in other words, for them. “He did not have the mind stone yet,” Loki replies and they stand together, finally, hands empty of false swords, false promises. Hands empty, but full nonetheless. 

He hears a stumble and his heart skips, shrapnel coming from a broken soul this time. Not this kid, not the only good thing he’s ever done, not the only thing he’s ever been proud of, and he stumbles, into his arms, _his_ arms, and oh god he is so much skinnier than he ever realized. He is so weak. They are both so mortal. But time realigns itself, and the shrapnel continues its fatal orbit for a day longer. And there is still a child, a spindly little boy in his arms, and his knees start to give out. They sit, intertwined, on a dusty yellow-red planet, and the kid keeps apologizing, and Tony can’t even find words. There are no words for this, this breathless crippling relief, this rush of blood red and crimson, this spilling of blue skies and scarlet sunsets. He just holds the child, _his_ child, in his almost hollow arms. Prophecies, dreams. So many universes.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in an hour after I saw infinity war. I had to do something, I just kept seeing Thor's face and hearing "I don't wanna go" over and over. Here is my something.


End file.
